Over the holidays (during which I disappeared from the blogosphere for a time...) I had a conversation with one of my brothers that, like most conversations with any of them, got me thinking. We were discussing the importance of staying positive, what a difference it makes and with "life" always happening around you, how difficult it can be sometimes. With a brand new baby and 2 little ones at home, school, work, and etc, he was telling me that he and his wife were struggling with discouragement and stress in their home.

One morning while discussing this together and exploring solutions, they decided that they were going to do an experiment for a month and take complaining completely off the table to see what kind of change, if any, that created in their home. He told me the results were astounding. The atmosphere in his home was entirely different as they each focused on emphasizing the positive instead of the negative. This was such an inspiration to me. It is not lost on me that this is not necessarily a new concept. However, isn't it interesting how easily we forget and how often we need to be reminded to stay on top of the things that we want and don't want to create in our lives? I know for me, it is.

This may seem familiar as it is essentially a derivative of the old "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all." While Thumper's mother was in fact giving sound advice here, I would suggest that it is, and should be, a bit more than that. It is a true concept that whatever we choose to focus on, we feed and as a result, whatever we feed gets bigger or has a larger presence in our lives. With that in mind, in order for this concept to have the most impact, it would need to be a 2 part process. While the absence of complaining on its own is very powerful and if we did nothing else but that, we would see a difference, it would make sense to also add the presence of whatever it is that your wanting.

I thought about how I could introduce this change with my children as I found myself getting frustrated with the amount of complaining that was going on and the level of irritation that grew in our home as a result. I want my kids to feel like they can express their concerns to me but I think teaching them how to do it with a positive, solution focused, perspective is more effective and productive. Here is what I decided to do:

Yesterday I announced and discussed with my kids the implementation of the "Complaint Jar" (this is also not a new concept and has several derivatives of its own). Each time any of us is heard complaining, we are required to drop a quarter in the jar (a dollar would have been too much for my 7 yr old who only gets a small amount in allowance, and I'm gonna be honest here, she's our biggest offender and would be out of money before you could say "Prada," but if your kids are older, I would suggest increasing it to an amount that makes sense.)

We talked very specifically about what exactly a "complaint" was vs a "concern" and asking for help if you're struggling with something, as well as how to focus on finding solutions and positive perspectives for concerns/problems. I wanted everyone to be very clear before we began that I wasn't asking them not to feel or voice concerns or "pretend" that everything is always great. It's all about perspective and its my job as a mom to teach them how to find that.

Usually I am not big on the "pay up for poor behavior" concept as I favor discipline over punishment. However, the point to this for me was that I wanted all of us to be on heightened awareness and called to attention regarding how often we (mostly one of us..lol) were complaining without having to harp on or target one kid in particular. Plus, its something we all can benefit from. At the end of the week, the money is donated. It does not go to the person who complained the least or into a pot for a family vacation! I did't want any of us being externally rewarded for our behavior, one way or another. Our family chose one of the many donation opportunities available through our church.

To increase the emphasis on the positive, I chose to add to our nightly family prayer and scripture study, saying one thing that we each loved and/or appreciated about each other. I am excited to see what changes occur in our home. The kids are excited to begin and with enough complaining in the world to sustain us all through a nuclear holocaust, I for one could do with a little more positive up in here!!